Ben Abas

(The Netherlands)

Tom Wels

Very little is known about the pulp-artist Ben Abas. After World War II, he worked for his father's Bell Studios in Lunteren, The Netherlands. Between 1947 and 1955, he created a very popular series of small illustrated books (called "beeldromans" in Dutch) including 'Lex Brand', 'Spot Morton', 'Tom Wells', 'Kara Ben Nemsi', 'Texas Ranger' and 'De Groene Straal'.

Martin Evans

He was a friend of Lo Hartog van Banda, with whom he created the science-fiction magazine Fantasie en Wetenschap in 1952. He was shortly affiliated with the famous Toonder Studio's, where he initially worked on the weekly 'Tom Poes' comic. By 1955, he partially drew the first story of the newspaper strip 'Martin Evans' by Hartog van Banda, but was eventually replaced by Dick Vlottes and later Gerrit Stapel. The strip originally appeared in Scandinavian newspapers and was published in Holland in Echo around 1958. Abas also drew the balloon strip 'De Strijd der Gaucho's' for magazine Okido. In later years, Ben Abas moved to Perth, Australia.